We just moved in. Can we move out yet?

We just moved to a new apt. and have been here for 15 days and absolutely hate the place. Is there any way to get out of the lease considering that it has only been two weeks? When we were looking for apts. this place looked great but there are many things that are wrong with this apt. We were told by the agent that showed us the place internet access was available and called Cablevision also confirmed that the service was available. We have found out that it is not due to construction problems and my partner works from home. Second of all there are bugs: ants, cock roaches, and millipedes. I awoke this morning to a cockroach crawling on my arm. Thirdly this apt is newly renovated and the wiring in the apt was done incorrectly. And the list goes on. There has to be some way to get out of this. Could you help? I have looked online and cannot find anything.
-Courtney

The first course of action here should probably be to try to fix what's wrong now. The good news for you is that your landlord has a legal obligation to fix most of these problems, the insects in particular. (You have our sympathies! We shudder just thinking about it. Cockroaches make our skin crawl.)

According to the Housing Maintenance Code, the owner is obligated to take care of your pest problem, and has a duty to repair any damage that you didn't cause (and we think the electrical problems would fall under that). Call your landlord and tell him that he needs to come fix these things. You can take legal action, too, to get him to fix it. The Rent Guidelines Board says to send such complaints to your local housing officials, but we aren't really sure what that means, so call 311 first and see what you can find out.

As for the cable and internet, we can't find anything indicating that the landlord has the legal responsibility to take care of that. And, actually, in our experience, usually our landlords say, "hey, you take care of that." Call the cable company and explain the problem and see if they can work around it. (Ask Gothamists' HQ had similar issues when we set up shop here, and after some industrial drilling, we're all set up, so it might be easier to remedy than you think.)

Now, if after all that you still are not happy, you may have grounds to terminate your lease. As we explained a couple of weeks ago, this could be a costly proposition, but may be worth it if you are truly miserable at your new place.

Good luck!

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Erin O'Brien in Miscellaneous on September 2, 2004 1:25 PM

Comments [rss]

Erin

The cable guy worked some magic for my unwired apartment. The previous tenants cut and patched over all the cable and phone connections, so the cable guy MacGuyvered a connection from the roof (which is wiled because I'm on the first floor of a 6 floor building). So strange things may be possible.

Darieus

You have a phone right? then get DSL. Take a look at Speakeasy.net, really good customer service.

zorro

Hi, about the cable and internet:

With the cable, you may be screwed. If it is only your apartment that is hosed you may be able to work out a deal with the neighbors either directly below or above you wherein you chip in for their cable and run a line yourself to your apartment and get them to pick up a calbe box from Time Warner. Given the exorbinant price of cable television and internet in NYC, they may be surprisingly open to that suggestion. Same goes for internet.

If cable tv isnt that important to you I think it may be worth it see if anyone in the general area has left their wireless access point open to public use. This is very common in New York City. Find a friend with a wireless card in their laptop and see if they get any internet connection.

You can also look at http://www.nycwireless.net/ for a list of free access points in and around NY.

PS. I feel like I should add that doing any of these things most likely violates Time Warner's Terms of Service and someo of it may be considered theft so I'm not telling you to do this and these are things I do not do, but these are things you can do if you the risk is worth it.